


Ants on the Counter

by Lobelia321



Series: Arthropods [2]
Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-30
Updated: 2013-04-30
Packaged: 2017-12-09 18:12:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/776464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lobelia321/pseuds/Lobelia321
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karl doesn't look at Dominic's ants.  He looks instead at Dominic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ants on the Counter

**Author's Note:**

> An experiment with style. All sorts of homages in here, mainly to Demelza, to Jenn and to children's entomology books.

Ants on the Counter

Title: Ants on the Counter

Series: Second in the Arthropods series, follows _Crabs in the Sand_.

Part: 1/1

Author: Lobelia <lobelia40@yahoo.com>

Website: http://blithesea.net/lobelia/

Pairing: Dominic Monaghan / Karl Urban

Rating: PG

Summary: Karl doesn't look at Dominic's ants. He looks instead at Dominic.

Feedback: Yes, please, I would love feedback! Anything, even if it's only one line, one word!

Content/Warnings: RPS

Spoilers: None whatsoever.

Archive Rights: Beyond the Fellowship. My niche. Anyone else, please just ask.

Disclaimers: This is a work of amateur fiction. I do not know these people. I am not making money. The events described in this story did not happen.

Author's Notes: An experiment with style. All sorts of homages in here, mainly to Demelza, to Jenn and to children's entomology books.

\------------

Ants are tiny, shiny things. They hurry along on six tiny legs, and they have shiny, black abdomens. It is difficult to look at ants properly. This is because they are so tiny and so shiny and so very, very fast on their feather-weight legs. In order to see ants properly, one has to crouch right down. Ants are not creatures of the air. It is no use craning one's neck and staring into the sun: no ants up there. In order to see ants, one has to get right down near the ground.

Dominic crouches on the kitchen floor. His head is at kitchen-counter height, at ant-height. The ants are hurrying along the top of the kitchen counter. They are making their way from crack-in-wall to crack-near-sink. Dominic tries to look at them properly. He tries to count them as they hurry along the counter. It is difficult to count the ants. It is difficult to keep track of any one individual. They run, they mill, they look very, very busy.

The ants are shiny and black. They have feelers in front and a fat abdomen out back. They have thin, wasp-like waists, and knobbly thoraxes. They don't have wings. They don't rustle or buzz. They are worker ants. They hurry and rush. Some ants are running after the ant in front, other ants are dashing off in circuitous loops of their own.

Dominic moves his pupils from left to right, and back again. The ants are emerging from the crack-in-wall at left, then running in the direction of Western writing towards the crack-near-sink. En route, they pass the jam jar, the tea spoon, the electric flex of the toaster, the coiled cord of the juicer, and Dominic's finger.

Dominic's finger sits quite still on the counter top. His finger doesn't move. It is like a big pink hill for the ants. The ants move and bustle; Dominic's finger just pulses with each breath. Not all ants climb the finger. Some run around its tip, others turn back. They do not divulge their reasons for this. Quite a few, though, clamber up the ridged edge of the finger-hill. They stream across the nail or scuttle back along the length of the finger. Three ants have reached Dominic's wrist. They want to keep running up his arm but they are confused by his watch strap. Two turn left, one turns right. They encircle Dominic's wrist, skirting the watch strap.

Dominic feels their tiny shiny legs on his skin hairs. This sensation is called formication. Dominic can think of at least one word that sounds similar.

He looks up, and there is a huge pair of eyes. The eyes look enormous because they are not ant-eyes. Dominic's brain has adjusted to ant-world dimensions. The eyes on the other side of the ants are human eyes. They are big and black and shiny.

"Hello, Karl. Look at my ants," says Dominic.

"Yeah," says Karl.

But Karl doesn't look at Dominic's ants. He looks instead at Dominic. His eyes look at Dominic's eyes. One pair of eyes is on the kitchen side of the counter, the other pair of eyes is on the patio side of the counter. Both pairs are huge -- compared to the ants, that is. You could fit at least twenty-five ants onto each big shiny human eye.

"Look at my wrist," says Dominic.

Karl looks at Dominic's wrist. "I want some ants," he says.

Karl's hand appears on the counter top. Karl rests one index finger on Dominic's watch strap. His nail grazes Dominic's skin hairs.

The ants continue running around and around Dominic's wrist. More ants join the three pioneer ants. They arrive there via Dominic's finger and knuckles. Not a single ant ventures onto Karl's finger.

"They don't like your smell," says Dominic.

"No, it's because you've put jam all over your hand," says Karl.

It's true. Dominic's hand rests in a mess of jam. A sticky trail leads from his hand all the way to crack-in-wall. The trail may once have been red. It's black now, black with ants.

"All these ants," says Dominic.

"Yeah?" prompts Karl.

"They are female ants," says Dominic. "They are dozens and scores and hundreds of ant babes."

"And you want them all eating out of your hand," says Karl.

"Hm," says Dominic and looks at Karl. He can feel the weight of Karl's finger on his watch strap. The weight is still and heavy, in contrast to the crawly-sprawly formication.

"Have an ant," says Dominic. He lifts his other hand and smears his thumb in the jam. He rubs the jam on Karl's finger, the finger that rests on Dominic's watch strap. Red dots are visible in the jam. They are bits of strawberry. A black dot detaches itself from the red dots. It is an ant.

"Hoo," says Karl. "Ticklish." But he doesn't flinch. Nor does he move his finger.

They look at the ants. The ants don't look back at them. Ants have their own formic agenda. Only very rarely does it intersect with human plans.

Dominic picks up some more ant-jam with his free thumb. This time he has captured a whole viscous glob, alive with black dots.

"You don't want all these," says Dominic. He lifts his thumb to his mouth. He parts his lips and he rests his thumb on his lower lip. Dominic's tongue comes out and licks his thumb.

Karl's eyes aren't looking at Dominic's eyes any longer.

Dominic removes his thumb and sticks his tongue all the way out. There is jam on his tongue. A handful of tiny shiny creatures are taking a walk on Dominic's tongue. They don't like it there. They seem disoriented.

Dominic pulls his tongue back into his mouth. He closes his mouth, and when he opens it again, the ants are gone.

Karl doesn't move his finger. He doesn't move his eyes, either.

He says, "I did."

"Did what?" asks Dominic.

"I did want those ants."

"Loads more," says Dominic. "Thousands. See?"

He rotates his thumb in the jam, sticks his tongue out and moves his thumb along the tip as if he were licking a stamp. Jammy ants are glued to Dominic's tongue.

"Aren't they ticklish?" asks Karl.

Dominic can't reply because his tongue is out. There are ants on Dominic's tongue, and also on his fingers and on his hand and on his wrist. The first intrepid explorers have trekked their way across the watch strap and are heading for the crook of Dominic's elbow. There are ants on the outside of Dominic, and there are ants on the inside of Dominic.

There are no ants on Karl. His one ant has escaped back onto Dominic's arm.

The floor boards creak as Karl lifts himself up from his crouching position. Karl's finger slips as he de-crouches himself. It slips, and Karl's entire hand comes to rest on Dominic's wrist. Karl bends across the counter top. His chest pushes against the mixer taps. His other hand brushes against the toaster flex. The tip of his tongue presses against the tip of Dominic's tongue.

Dominic's tongue is sticky with jam and antsy with ants. The ants try to bustle and mill. The two tongues are quite still. Karl's eyes look at Dominic's eyes. Dominic's eyes are trained on the ants. He is cross-eyed because the ants are in the blind spot beneath Dominic's nose.

Karl moves his tongue. Dominic closes his eyes.

Karl's tongue removes itself.

"Look," says Karl. Except it sounds like 'whook' because Karl has his tongue out. There are ants on Karl's tongue. Dominic opens his eyes. He sees Karl's ants for one second, then Karl closes his mouth.

"Give me back my ants," says Dominic. His mouth feels sticky. Bits of sweetened strawberry have lodged themselves in the cracks between his teeth.

"Okay," says Karl.

He sticks out his tongue again. Dominic inspects the tongue.

"I don't think I want them anymore," he says. "Those ants look dead."

Karl is silent for one milli-second, then he bursts out laughing. Bits of jam and ant fly into Dominic's face.

"What?" splutters Karl. "You eat only live ants? Is that what you're saying?"

"Why are you here, anyway?" says Dominic.

Karl stands up. He runs his finger along the taps. He sucks his lips in and out between his teeth and moves his tongue against the wall of his mouth. Dominic sees the bulge of Karl's tongue against the skin on the outside.

"I'm not used to eating ants," says Karl. "Have you got something to swill them down with?"

"Why don't you like my ants?" asks Dominic.

"They're not your ants," says Karl. "They're just ants."

"Why don't you like them?" Dominic repeats.

Karl looks at the ants still flowing along the road of jam, out of crack-in-wall into crack-near-sink. He inserts his finger into the mouth of the metal tube which forms the mixer tap. He sucks the moisture off his finger.

"They're pests," says Karl.

"Cockroaches are pests," says Dominic. "Woodlice are pests. Moths are pests. Horseflies..."

"I've brought your togs," says Karl.

"Oh," says Dominic.

"Nice togs," says Karl.

"Yes," says Dominic. "Bit tight on you."

Dominic lifts his arm. There is a tingling sensation which is not formication. Dominic's arm has gone to sleep what with being held still against the counter top for so long. The first ants have reached the hem of Dominic's shirtsleeve. They are disappearing towards his armpit.

"Why were you at the beach without bathing trunks?" asks Dominic. "Are you finally going to tell me?"

Karl purses his lips. "Maybe," he says. "Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. Maybe I was there to be a beachcomber. Maybe I was there to look for somebody. Maybe I just forgot my togs at home."

"Who were you looking for?" asks Dominic.

"I said maybe."

"How's your sunburn?" asks Dominic.

"I haven't got one."

"Hm," says Dominic. "Who were you looking for -- _maybe_?"

But he already knows the answer to this question. As Karl says the name, Dominic says it along with him.

\-----------------

22 July 2002 

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